Bonus post: The Kickstarter That Set Publishing Twitter on Fire
A few business-related thoughts on the Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter (at $15m and counting)
I found myself tweeting At Length about the Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter and hello, this seems like a better place to collect my thoughts. First, as I said yesterday, it’s just WILD TO WATCH.
Comparable to watching a world population ticker or the stock market (if you understand that) or some cryptodude’s dream non-fungible receipt for his animatronic double. I’m putting my publishing nerd cap on here (for those of you who don’t know, I wrote for Publishers Weekly for about a decade before I was a published author), and unpacking a bit more what I’ve posted on Twitter.
The Kickstarter is for four secret novels Brandon Sanderson wrote during the pandemic, three set in one of his most popular fictional worlds, in various formats, along with the choice to get swag boxes of stuff, all of this for the entire year of 2023. Noteworthy that is a long time out to plan! The total is currently at $15.4 million with more than 59,000 backers. It’s slowed a little, but those numbers are still mesmerizing to watch move. So, what does this mean, if anything, for publishing, from an author’s perspective? Here’s what I think.
The reason we're all watching it is not just because HOLY CRAP, although that’s certainly an important factor. It’s because this is a first. First at this level for fiction, at least as far as I know. And that means it's worth keeping an eye on and discussing for what it means in a larger sense, if anything at all. Spoiler: I suspect it does, though I also am sure to miss some things. It’s not the first Kickstarter to fund novels or swag, but it is HUGE. I’d like to point out, though, that while it’s still relatively rare to publish novels through Kickstarter, it has been one of the largest sources of graphic novels for some time.
There is a lot of speculation about what other authors could pull this off… Certainly it does NOT mean that most — even big name — authors could do this at this level, even if they wanted to. It’s important to note that not only does Brandon Sanderson have a massive fan following, he has done at least one multi-million Kickstarter in the past, and has sold fans merchandise and special editions of his novels for some time now. He knows how to do the fulfillment and how to estimate costs. That matters! The people who backed the earlier projects likely jumped on immediately because he delivered beautiful books to them. Then, it's a ball attaining mass as it rolls, taking on a life of its own from the center of the Kickstarter home page and fans joyously losing their shit.
So, no, most other authors are not going to launch a Kickstarter like this, even with four complete new books, and net $15 million — but I think the vast majority of authors would be happy with far less. I’d faint at a million. I’d invent a new Snoopy Dance at $200,000, to be honest. Possibly less. AND there are precedents for similar types of Kickstarters on a more understandable scale. For instance, look at the fabulous Katee Robert’s recent Kickstarter for hardcover book editions of her Wicked Villains books and swag boxes—her goal was $20,000; she raised more than $173,000. The photos she’s been posting of the items as they come in look AMAZING.
So projects like this are definitely going to become more common, IMO. As someone who’s worked with Subterranean Press (the best in the limited biz) for years, whose business model is based around signed limited editions, I find it no surprise that people want to make investments in the books they love. Most Big Five publishers have relatively little interest in servicing these fans themselves, because it takes a special skill set and is a different business model. Might that change? If it does, it’ll be slow. I think publishers have generally been happier to work with specialty presses like SubPress or subscription box providers than try to do this themselves.
So while we probably aren’t going to see a lot of $15m and climbing Kickstarters from novelists, I predict we will see more that do what any of us would consider extremely well. Here’s a new form of fan engagement for authors who have the fans and organizational skills, which a lot of authors in romance and fantasy do or have picked up doing indie projects as well as trad pub. Fascinating times, and I look forward to seeing whether this inspires others and how.
For instance, say you’re an author with a devoted fanbase and a series your publisher never bought into or ended before you were ready and you can afford the time to write it or issue new editions? More possibilities are open. There’s a model to look at. We’ve seen authors diversifying their income streams becoming a bigger thing for some time. Patreon, Substack (like this one, which you can support! *bats eyelashes*), and et cetera, all of which are good things because they not only can help provide regular financial support — sorely needed in times when publishers are breaking our checks into ever more payments and so on — but they also give another line of direct communication to fans and readers.
AND when I see people only putting out lists of mostly male authors who might be able to do this sort of thing, I think they are missing the enthusiastic fandoms out there for a lot of women in various genres. For instance, I’ve seen Rothfuss and GRRM’s names thrown around — you know who could probably do this in a heartbeat? Sarah Maas. Leigh Bardugo. N.K. Jemisin. So beware the bubbles of your own community showing in your predictions. Just as many of my YA and romance friends are like…Brandon Sanderson IS THIS BIG? Just remember, publishing is a big, wide world. You can’t generalize based on just your corner of it. See Katee Robert’s Kickstarter above. (Would they want to is a whole other question? No idea.)
Do I think some publishers are currently having very sweaty conversations? That we may see some language creep into contract boilerplate to prevent this kind of thing? I certainly think agents should be watching for it. Hard to say.
And, of course, for authors, the question is how do you build that passionate fanbase? It has to be authentic and come from you and it takes time. I’m still working on it, for sure! And to an extent it’s out of our control. (And more so for some than others, see next point.) But it does go back to the discussion of time and infrastructure. Brandon Sanderson didn’t wake up with the ability to raise this kind of money from fans. It happened over a long period of time, and many books, including one that brought in another huge fandom. He has made a lot of smart decisions, worth looking at, including how he rolled this all out. And he’s spent a lot of time on building hubs for his fandom. John Green is another who comes to mind like this, who spent and spends scads of time on that (and a lot of it on charity efforts!).
And, last but not least, there’s this:
Thoughts? Questions? Conspiracy theories? Leave ‘em in the comments. And please consider subscribing, so you don’t miss new posts.
Unrelated, although it does involve GRRM, Christopher did a post about my joining the Wild Cards Consortium that is *very* accurate, or at least very funny.
This is fascinating! I'm so curious about what this will do to contracts in the future. But I mainly like what it does for those of us who like to consider ways to monetize more of our work that otherwise seems like free content creation.
And like you said, most authors wouldn't draw the kind of money he's drawing, but they'd proudly and humbly accept much, much less. Stories like this always lead to others who turn around and do something similar, even if on a smaller scale. And the process will change and evolve into a new way of doing things for some.
Remember the first several authors who made it big by publishing their own work on the Kindle. Look how many authors now make REALLY good livings doing the same thing. Only now, it's gotten WAY more sophisticated.
It's going to be verrrry interesting to see how author contracts are drawn up in the future. My first thought was "I bet this creates a non-compete type of clause." And then it becomes murky because the idea of derivative works..I watched it skyrocket to over $17 million at lunch today. I mean..
Yeah, if someone paid me even $20k, I'd probably do a TikTok dance.